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Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Originally Posted by joG

Deregulation? The finance sector was and is highly regulated. Anyone that tells you differently has never had anything to do with it or is lying.
The idea you could control capital flows is both quaint and inhuman, given the fact that the capital flow enabled more than 1,5 billion starving people to come into jobs.
When unions shrink in open societies you will usually find that the reason is that they no longer fill a need.

The Financial sector has always been regulated, but in the 1990s you had massaive deregulation across europe, privitizing banks, allowing Commercial banks more flexibility, freeing up Capital and so on.

You can Control Capital flows .... you know who does this very well? Germany, With Co-Determination and local Control over industry, i.e. the country doing the best in the EU so far.

Or when unions shrink you'll find decades of a buisiness class desperately trying to eliminate them, through any means necessary, including using the state.

The fact is the same, much of western Europe in the late 80s and 90s, when through drastic economic liberalization, and it is now feeling the consequences .... Norway, (luckily) did not go as far as others.

Originally Posted by AliHajiSheik

So this fund doesn't invests in places that are productive instead of in Norway, how very Corporate.

It's called diversification, it's a Sovereign fund, not a Public Works banks ... and it also invests in Norway.

Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Originally Posted by RGacky3

The Financial sector has always been regulated, but in the 1990s you had massaive deregulation across europe, privitizing banks, allowing Commercial banks more flexibility, freeing up Capital and so on.

You can Control Capital flows .... you know who does this very well? Germany, With Co-Determination and local Control over industry, i.e. the country doing the best in the EU so far.

Or when unions shrink you'll find decades of a buisiness class desperately trying to eliminate them, through any means necessary, including using the state.

The fact is the same, much of western Europe in the late 80s and 90s, when through drastic economic liberalization, and it is now feeling the consequences .... Norway, (luckily) did not go as far as others.

It's called diversification, it's a Sovereign fund, not a Public Works banks ... and it also invests in Norway.

I'm afraid that your take on regulation of the financial markets is off the wall. There is no question that the regulations were bad and control sloppy. But I have been dealing with regulation in Germany for years and believe me, there is more than required and it is often contradictory so that nobody knows what it really does. And yes, the Germans have controlled capital flows,. But it is much to their detriment and very much at the center of the problems of their pension system.

Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Originally Posted by joG

I'm afraid that your take on regulation of the financial markets is off the wall. There is no question that the regulations were bad and control sloppy. But I have been dealing with regulation in Germany for years and believe me, there is more than required and it is often contradictory so that nobody knows what it really does. And yes, the Germans have controlled capital flows,. But it is much to their detriment and very much at the center of the problems of their pension system.

No it isn't, the regulations may have had problems, but the Uk, France, Italy, Spain and so on ALL radically deregulated their Financial markets, and the creation of the EU made extremely free flowing Capital.

I mean just imagine if Norway privitized the oil industry in the 70s as many neo-liberals wanted ...

Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Originally Posted by RGacky3

No it isn't, the regulations may have had problems, but the Uk, France, Italy, Spain and so on ALL radically deregulated their Financial markets, and the creation of the EU made extremely free flowing Capital.

I mean just imagine if Norway privitized the oil industry in the 70s as many neo-liberals wanted ...

I cannot speak for every country, but if you want to talk Spain, you will find that regulation and not deregulation was the cause of the blowout and that is other regulation that is crushing france.
And what exactly do you think would have been bad, had Norway sold the oil industry?

Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Originally Posted by joG

I cannot speak for every country, but if you want to talk Spain, you will find that regulation and not deregulation was the cause of the blowout and that is other regulation that is crushing france.
And what exactly do you think would have been bad, had Norway sold the oil industry?

Not exactly, in Spain you had a housible bubble much like the United States caused by the ability of banks to lend high risk loans without risk to themselves and bet against them.

With France, France has always had regulation, what it's lost, what's changed, is the mass privitizations that happened in the 90s, and the financialization of the economy.

Had Norway sold their oil industry Norway would have been as poor as it was before the oil industry , it would end up essencially (as many other countries are) being a vassel state to Big Oil.

There have always since the end of WW2 been social democratic policies in europe, what changed in the 90s was massiave privitizations and financialization of the economy and deregulation specifically of the Financial economy (when it comes to other regulations, I agree there are many nonsense ones, but the Financial ones are the important ones).

Re: Norwegians become crown millionaires

Not exactly, in Spain you had a housible bubble much like the United States caused by the ability of banks to lend high risk loans without risk to themselves and bet against them.

With France, France has always had regulation, what it's lost, what's changed, is the mass privitizations that happened in the 90s, and the financialization of the economy.

Had Norway sold their oil industry Norway would have been as poor as it was before the oil industry , it would end up essencially (as many other countries are) being a vassel state to Big Oil.

There have always since the end of WW2 been social democratic policies in europe, what changed in the 90s was massiave privitizations and financialization of the economy and deregulation specifically of the Financial economy (when it comes to other regulations, I agree there are many nonsense ones, but the Financial ones are the important ones).

In Spain a major reason for the bubble in real estate and this is different than in the States, was that the financial industry was so regulated that it was not allowed many investments. So the money sloshing around the system was funnelled into a narrow sector fueling the bubble.

In France the misbegotten social legislation and poorly structured privatization forming monopolies instead of markets dragged down capital productivity and limited investment.

The idea that the financial industry in Germany was less regulated in 1980 than in 2000 is absurd. Why insider trading, front running, price fixing and other fine things were the ways in which bankers compensated themselves. Rules like SEC 405 were totally unknown in the Germany of the 1970s.